Shoutouts!
Mystery science seed: I certainly hope it becomes a whole lot more interesting, because I have a lot of things in mind for it…
Catiepie182002: Aw…thanks for feeding my ego. I didn't see it on the sci-fi channel, but I have the DVD, so it's all good! And yeah…this category needs more activity, and new plot lines. Let's start the movement! And I'm surprised that I don't hate my main character!
Magdalena Iris Roth: I hope I can keep up the suspense, but I don't think that'll be a problem with this one. It's gonna be FUN.
LoKi-Shiver: I want to see what happens too…half the time I don't know what's going to happen until my hands have already typed it…Oo
TheAngryPrincess13: She MIGHT visit the house…hehe…and yes, the Juggernaut did kill Dennis, aided by the Hammer. Ghosts like that working together? You'd think they wouldn't get along…maybe…
Fists1: My first reviewer! hands you a cookie Don't worry, I'll keep updating. I'm loving this story!
Now, on to the story. Thank you to all my reviewers!
He couldn't have been psychic. That stuff was only in works of fiction, along with werewolves, monsters, and ghosts.
Maybe he was epileptic or something. Maybe that's why he was so hard to live with. Whatever it was, I had to find out, and I may as well start at where he spent all of his time. At his home.
It only took me fifteen minutes to get to the address on his driver's license, and I shuddered. The streets were dirty and there was a drunk leaning against the door, and half the streetlights were out. I pulled into an empty parking space and stepped out of the car, pulling my jacket tighter around my body.
I couldn't imagine living here. My parents were basically filthy rich…and they sent him away with nothing. He ended up living in the slums when a month of my dad's salary could've had him living in a penthouse.
I looked at the listing of the apartments, and I found the last name "Rafkin" on apartment 4B.
You would've been Julia Rafkin…not Julia Thurston.
Personally, I liked Rafkin better than Thurston.
I knew that if I buzzed straight to his apartment, no one would answer. Instead, I buzzed to the apartment next to his, apartment 3B.
"Hello? Who's there?" I heard a lady's voice say through the intercom, sounding strained and stressed.
"Hi, um…my name is Julia Thur…Rafkin. I need your help."
A pause. "Did you say Rafkin?"
"Yes. Julia Rafkin."
A male's voice was suddenly on the intercom. "You related to that weirdo next door?"
I had to take a deep breath to keep my temper in check. "That weirdo was my brother. And he's dead now."
There was a long pause. Then the female said, "Come on up."
The buzzing sound started and I pushed through the door, rushing to the elevator and punching in the second floor. The door at 3B opened right as I got to it, and a hassled looking middle aged brunette woman ushered me in. A man sat in a chair by the window, watching the rain and smoking a cigarette.
The lady smiled. "Would you like something to drink? Some orange juice, coffee-"
"Or maybe some fresh blood?" The man interrupted.
"Harold! The poor girl lost her brother-"
"And that's a damn shame, but that boy was a freak."
The woman shook her head, gesturing for me to sit down. I did so, and she sat down beside me.
"What is it you want to know?" she asked.
"Anything. Anything at all," I begged, and her eyes widened.
"Well, we didn't know him that well…he was very, very sick…"
"What do you mean, sick?"
The husband snorted. "He always had migraines. He was addicted to painkillers. He would drink until he passed out five nights out of every week. And he never could keep a job before this latest one."
The wife nodded as he spoke, and then added, "And twice he's collapsed in the hallway or on the way up the stairs. I was just trying to help him carry his groceries, and he went into a seizure and started screaming at me. It was very, very odd."
This was a new twist. So he did have some kind of a sickness…but there was no way of knowing what it was just from this.
"Is there…is there any way I can get into his apartment?"
"They had it stripped yesterday," the husband said.
"I know, but…I just want to see where he lived. I want to know him a little better."
The woman smiled weakly. "He left an extra key on top of the door frame. He was always losing his keys or forgetting them, from what I saw."
"Thank you so much," I said, standing up and going to the door.
"Julia," the lady said, getting up and opening the door for me, "I'm very sorry. He was…strange…but he seemed like a nice young man."
I stepped out and she closed the door behind me. I walked just a little ways down the hallway, coming to the door with the crooked label 4B.
I jumped up and felt the top of the doorframe, knocking the key down from where it lay hidden. I picked it up and unlocked the door, cringing at the loud creak that it created when it swung open. Somehow, I felt that I should be quiet, even though no one was here.
The couple had been right. The apartment was stripped bare, save for a few pieces of furniture, but it was very dirty. I walked inside and let the door swing shut behind me, sighing as I looked around the desolate home.
"Dennis…give me something…anything," I whispered to the room, jumping when lightening lit up the blank walls. Or, mostly blank.
The landlord obviously was leaving the place to be cleaned by the next tenants, because a part of one wall was still covered in papers taped to the wall. I fumbled on the wall for a light switch, finally finding it and flipping on the bright light in the middle of the room.
I walked to the wall and inspected the papers closer. Most of them were newspaper articles about fatalities; the death of a young drag racer, the murder of a teenage girl on her prom night, the suicide of a young woman, a fire that claimed the life of a mother…other papers were hand-written maps, one of a school, another of a junkyard…it was just a very odd assortment of papers, maps, and articles.
"Well…he won't be needing them now..." I muttered to myself, gently beginning to remove the papers from the wall. They would've been thrown away anyway; I may as well keep them myself.
Among the papers was a post-it note that simply said "Cyrus Kriticos, 8pm Monday". It looked old. I remembered that Cyrus Kriticos was the same man who made out the paycheck to Dennis. I filed that name away in my memory, repeating the spelling over and over to make sure I didn't forget.
Then I noticed something odd…the mother who died in the fire in the article that he had up…her name was Jean Kriticos. Dennis was obviously close to the Kriticos family; if I found them, I might find the answers I wanted.
But where would I find them? And how?
"What are you doing in here?"
I turned around and found myself staring own the barrel of a gun. I looked past the gun to the person holding it; a middle aged man wearing a rumpled suit, the tie hanging around his neck untied.
"I…I'm Julia Thurston…I'm Dennis's sister…" I stuttered, and he lowered the gun.
"He had a sister?"
I shrugged. "Yeah. I just…never knew him that well." Well, if that wasn't the understatement of the year.
"I'm sorry about your loss," the man said. "But you need to leave."
"Why?"
He laughed. "Why do you think I have a gun? Druggies sneak in through the windows of empty apartments to shoot up. You shouldn't be in this area of town at all."
"Did you know Dennis?"
He raised an eyebrow as I completely ignored his warning to get out.
"No one knew him that well. He pretty much kept to himself. All I know is that a few months ago he started leaving at noon and wouldn't be back until five or six the next morning. The last time I saw the kid was maybe a couple weeks ago; he came in, filled a duffel bag with stuff, and he left. Never came back either."
"Did he have any friends? Anyone that I could talk to?"
He thought for a moment, and then shrugged. "I'm sorry, kid. If I could help you, I would. But he…he just didn't seem to care much for the company of others."
I bit my lip; it was worth a try. "Did you know a Cyrus Kriticos?"
"Yeah, he's that adventurer guy."
"Where can I find him?"
The man laughed, obviously thinking that I was kidding. Then, he looked at me closer, and the smile dropped off his face.
"He died the same day that your brother did. Didn't you know?"
I groaned. All my lines to Dennis were being cut. Nobody knew him, and the people that did spend time with him were dead.
"Thank you," I said to the man, sifting through the papers in my hand to find the article about Jean Kriticos. The man at first seemed reluctant to leave, but he eventually shrugged and walked out.
I found the article, reading down through the whole thing, and eventually coming upon the name of the woman's husband.
Arthur Kriticos. If he wasn't dead as well, he just might be the person to help me.
Next chapter, Julia meets Arthur…and let's just say he isn't really interested in reliving the glass house experience…but might someone else be?